A Tale of Two Stūpas: Diverging Paths in the Revival of Buddhism in China Albert Welter full chapter instant download

A Tale of Two St■pas: Diverging Paths
in the Revival of Buddhism in China

Albert Welter
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/a-tale-of-two-stupas-diverging-paths-in-the-revival-of-
buddhism-in-china-albert-welter/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...
The Politics and Governance of Basic Education: A Tale

of Two South African Provinces Brian Levy
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-politics-and-governance-of-
basic-education-a-tale-of-two-south-african-provinces-brian-levy/
A History of China in the 20th Century 1st Edition Lü

Peng
https://ebookmass.com/product/a-history-of-china-in-the-20th-
century-1st-edition-lu-peng/
The Many Paths of Change in International Law Nico

Krisch
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-many-paths-of-change-in-
international-law-nico-krisch/
The Dominion of Sin: Book two of The Origin's Daughter

Series Alexandra St Pierre
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-dominion-of-sin-book-two-of-
the-origins-daughter-series-alexandra-st-pierre/
Reincarnation in Tibetan Buddhism: The Third Karmapa
and the Invention of a Tradition Ruth Gamble
https://ebookmass.com/product/reincarnation-in-tibetan-buddhism-
the-third-karmapa-and-the-invention-of-a-tradition-ruth-gamble/
The Dharma in DNA: Insights at the Intersection of

Biology and Buddhism Dee Denver
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-dharma-in-dna-insights-at-the-
intersection-of-biology-and-buddhism-dee-denver/
A History of China in the 20th Century Lü Peng
https://ebookmass.com/product/a-history-of-china-in-the-20th-
century-lu-peng/
The Trickster's Tale: Is That a Lute in Your Pocket?:

(A LitRPG Adventure) (The Tricksters Tale Book 1) J Pal
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-tricksters-tale-is-that-a-lute-
in-your-pocket-a-litrpg-adventure-the-tricksters-tale-
book-1-j-pal/
The Rise of the Middle Class in Contemporary China

Hainan Su
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-rise-of-the-middle-class-in-
contemporary-china-hainan-su/
A Tale of Two Stūpas: Diverging Paths in the Revival of Buddhism in China
Albert Welter
https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197606636.001.0001
Published: 2022 Online ISBN: 9780197606667 Print ISBN: 9780197606636
FRONT MATTER
Copyright Page 
https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197606636.002.0003 Page iv
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/book/44471/chapter/376419053 by Cairns Library, University of Oxford user on 16 May 2023
Published: October 2022
Subject: Buddhism
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.
© Oxford University Press 2022
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction
rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above.
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022912824
ISBN 978–0–19–760663–6
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197606636.001.0001
135798642
Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America

Preface
My association with Hangzhou began as a graduate student, doing research
for a dissertation on Yongming Yanshou 永明延壽 (904–975). Trained
as a textual scholar with an eye toward the intricacies of doctrinal debates
and scriptural subtleties, I paid less attention to the physical settings that
Yanshou’s life and work were situated in, even as I was fascinated with the
context that nurtured him. Besides, there was not much to see in the decade
following the Cultural Revolution, a punctuation mark to the long decades
of devastation and neglect that saddened the heart of anyone with a keen in-
terest in the past. Like the proverbial phoenix, the presumably dead embers
reignited from the ashes and Chinese Buddhism, however circumscribed by
government directives, Hangzhou Buddhism represents one of the most vi-
brant Buddhist traditions in the world today. During my increasingly fre-
quent trips to China, and especially to Hangzhou, in recent years, it occurred
to me that the regional dimensions of Hangzhou Buddhism were worth
exploring in their own right, not simply as episodes in a larger narrative of
Chinese Buddhism. A Tale of Two Stūpas represents the fruition of my efforts
to come to terms with Hangzhou Buddhism, the importance of its past and
the vitality of its resurgence.
The current work may be viewed as initial results of the Hangzhou Region
and the Chinese Creation of an East Asian Buddhism, or more simply, the
Hangzhou Buddhist Culture Project. My debts to this project are broad
and wide-ranging. First and foremost, I would like to thank the Khyentse
Foundation, which provided (and continues to provide) substantial support
for the Hangzhou Buddhist Culture Project. In particular, I am grateful to
Cangioli Che, executive director, who early on expressed keen interest in the
project. Sydney Jay, research director, has also continued to enthusiastically
support the project. The project originated in a seed grant sponsored by an
International Research and Program Development grant from the Office of
Research, Discovery & Innovation at the University of Arizona. The success
of the project has also been incumbent upon the participation of our Chinese
partners, Zhejiang University, particularly Feng Guodeng, and Zhongguo
Jiliang University, particularly Qiu Gaoxing. In addition, we have been
viii Preface
exceptionally fortunate to receive the support and hospitality of Lingyin

Monastery, whose abbot, Venerable Guangquan, also head of the Hangzhou
Buddhist Association, has taken a keen interest in the project. Guangquan’s
assistant, Venerable Hui Yang, has played an instrumental role in fostering
the smooth execution of project activities. The research undertaken for this
book, and for the Hangzhou Buddhist Culture Project more generally, would
scarcely be possible without all their support, for which I am truly grateful.
Closer to home, I am grateful to my colleague Jiang Wu, director of the
Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of Arizona, for his enthusiastic
support for the Hangzhou Buddhist Culture Project. Without his vision for
and embrace of its aims and aspirations, the contours of the project would be
far less ambitious. I am also grateful for the positive feedback from colleagues
when learning of the project. In particular, I thank Steven Heine, Jin Y. Park,
Daniel Stevenson, Daniel Getz, and Morten Schlütter. The list could be ex-
panded, and I apologize to anyone I have inadvertently neglected to men-
tion here. Many colleagues in China in addition to those already mentioned
have expressed support along the way, as have Mitsuya Dake at Ryūkoku
University in Kyoto and Thomas Kim at Dongguk University in Seoul. I look
forward to future collaborations.
The current manuscript benefited from the comments of outside reviewers
who made suggestions for improvement. I have tried to incorporate most of
these suggestions, and the finished product has been improved as a result. In
addition, three graduate students in my seminar on Hangzhou Buddhism,
Kai Sum Wong, Yi Liu, and Xinrui Zeng, read through an earlier draft of the
manuscript and made useful suggestions for amending it. I am grateful for
the close reading they gave it, which helped catch some infelicitous errors.
Needless to say, any errors that remain are mine alone.
Finally, I would like to thank the editorial staff at Oxford University Press.
Executive Editor Cynthia Read and her staff are consummate professionals
and always a pleasure to work with.
1
Introduction: Buddhist Relic Veneration,
Buddhist Sites and Translocations, and
the Transformation of the Hangzhou/
Jiangnan Region into an Indian
Buddhist Homeland
When the World- Honored One proceeded toward the stūpa,

the top of the decaying stūpa radiated great beams of light in an
awe-inspiring flourish.
爾時世尊徑往塔所。時朽塔上放大光明赫然熾盛。
—The Precious Chest Seal Dhārani Sūtra
A Tale of Two Stūpas: Diverging Paths in the Revival of Buddhism in Hangzhou

China, as its title suggests, tells the story of Hangzhou Buddhism through
the conceptions, erections, and resurrections of Yongming Stūpa, dedicated
to the memory of one of Hangzhou’s leading Buddhist figures, and Leifeng
Pagoda, built to house stūpas of the historical Buddha’s remains.
While delving into the intricacies of these two sites, I have been partic-
ularly interested in their origins and their resurrections. What we find in
both cases is a history marked by grandeur and tragedy, of expected and
unexpected turns. Reconstructed, reactivated, and reasserted Yongming
Stūpa and Leifeng Pagoda have resumed meaningful places in the con-
temporary Hangzhou landscape. Their contemporary resurgences are by
no means the first. Both had suffered devastation before and endured long
periods of neglect. Yet both were resurrected (and re-resurrected) during the
course of their histories, a mark of the power of their endurance. How does
A Tale of Two Stūpas. Albert Welter, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2022.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197606636.003.0001
2 A Tale of Two Stūpas
this dynamic work, and what does it tell us about the nature of Hangzhou
Buddhism, if not Chinese Buddhism more generally?
One aspect of the current study that distinguishes it is its “vertical” anal-
ysis. By this I mean an examination of my subjects by way of something akin
to geological core sampling. Normally, scholars of Buddhism, and religion
more generally, tend to focus on particular figures and texts, and thus the
frame of reference is circumscribed by the era that the figure and text oper-
ated in, to unravel the associated meanings and significance. Sometimes we
also entertain the reception of the figure, text, or ideas in later periods to em-
phasize their enduring significance, but usually the main focus remains the
provenance the subjects emanated from, a horizontal analysis that looks out-
ward (and perhaps inward) to fix the meaning of the subject in a particular
time and place. Even as we shift our attention beyond the “great man” and
“great book” model and entertain a wider spectrum of phenomena, we rarely
enlarge our scope beyond a particular temporal frame. And for good reason!
Temporal frames provide the most meaningful analysis of how particular
phenomena operated in specific contexts. As our attentions expand out-
ward, we run the risk of losing the thread and getting lost in a mass of detail,
trying, often futilely, to recover a meaningful theme. Already in the Chinese
Buddhist context we have until recent decades struggled to get beyond grand
national narratives that privilege capital elites. How can we capture the dy-
namics of Chinese Buddhist phenomena that avoid the stigma of elitism and
still give us a comprehensiveness that goes beyond highly circumscribed pe-
riodization? I am not suggesting that the “core sampling” approach is the sole
answer to questions far too complex to remedy with a single method. I am
suggesting, however, that core sampling may be a useful tool in our box of
methods to enhance our understanding of aspects of Chinese Buddhist dy-
namism, to taste the richness of a tradition through specific analysis of dif-
ferent eras of the extracted “core.” When we do a historically circumscribed
investigation around a specific core site, we acquire data regarding when the
site was active and the kind of activities that the site attracted. Limited as
we are by what information our sources yield, the stories we tell are struc-
tured around this available data. Vertical investigation allows for explora-
tion of different dynamics than horizontal ones. Vertical examinations invite
discussions about resiliency and about periods of dynamism interspersed
with repression and stagnancy. These discussions bring us closer to under-
standing the dynamics of Buddhism in China––perpetuated through cycles
of stagnancy, repression, and resurgence.
Introduction 3
Sites currently active and relevant tend to draw our attention, as is the case
here. But it is possible to choose sites that are no longer functioning. This
would have been the case with Leifeng Pagoda had this study been attempted
in the previous century, when it lay in rubble beneath the overgrowth along
West Lake, or in the case of the Zhaoqing Monastery 昭慶寺, historically
one of the four prominent monasteries of Hangzhou (along with Lingyin 靈
隱, Jingci 淨慈, and Haichao 海潮 monasteries) and now subsumed within
the Hangzhou Children’s Palace park along the shores of West Lake, its traces
virtually undetectable but for historical sources. Because core sampling is re-
stricted to a specific place, it is by definition regional. In fact, it is arguably
even more specific as it pertains to a very spatially restricted geographical
area within a region. The region that sites operate in, however, remains the
meaningful context for analysis.1
In this volume, I look to apply this “core sampling” approach by looking at
two specific sites in the Hangzhou region: the Yongming Stūpa and Leifeng
Pagoda. In carrying out my analysis, I use three further methods of ap-
proach: Buddhist relic veneration, Buddhist sites and institutions, and re-
gional approaches to Buddhism.
Buddhist Relic Veneration
The endurance of Yongming Stūpa and Leifeng Pagoda is a testimony to a

strong tradition of relic worship in Buddhism.2 The worship of relics is a well-
established practice in the history of religions, documented across many
traditions. Medieval Christianity, for example, shared many of the features
of the polytheistic religions that prevailed for many centuries before Christ,
including the creation of an altar or shrine over the body of a hero.3 Even
though Muslims regard human bodies as impure, requiring cleansing rituals
for those coming in contact with them, the bodies of the “special dead,” such
as the Prophet Muhammad, martyrs, and righteous individuals, are deemed
incorruptible and are worshiped in shrines, a practice that became norma-
tive throughout the Islamic world.4 Although relatively uncommon in the
Hindu tradition, relics of deceased saints are viewed as truly living entities.5
The veneration of the Buddha’s physical remains is a common feature
throughout the Buddhist world, even though it was long regarded as an ab-
erration from a doctrinal perspective based on the Buddha’s teachings of
“no-self ” and “nonattachment.” In spite of this, the Buddha’s relics (śarīra)
were gathered after his cremation and distributed among several kings, who
built stūpa mounds to house them in. So valuable were these that a “war of
the relics,” a competition for the most valuable portions of the cremated re-
mains––typically teeth and intact bone fragments––was narrowly avoided
at their dispersion.6 These stūpa mounds became important pilgrimage
destinations for believers and a focus for lay and monastic piety, especially
since physical replications of the Buddha’s body (i.e., statues or paintings)
were not made in the early tradition. As Sem Vermeersch has noted, although
relic cults in Buddhism have traditionally been interpreted as a concession
to the needs of lay practitioners, an increasing number of studies reveal
that relics have played an important role in the Buddhist religion and that
practices regarding relics demonstrate great diversity, necessitating complex
doctrinal explanations to serve as strategies for incorporating the relic cult
into mainstream Buddhist practice.7
As the dispersion of the Buddha’s relics among eight kings following his
cremation indicates, the possession of relics became especially important
in establishing and maintaining political legitimacy. This association be-
tween “managing” the Buddha’s remains and political legitimacy gained
further momentum when the Indian king of the Maurya dynasty, Aśoka,
collected the dispersed relics and allegedly enshrined them in eighty-four
thousand reliquaries and magically dispersed them throughout the world,
including China, and established his claim as a cakravartin 轉輪聖王, lit-
erally a wheel-turning sage king, an ideal, universal, enlightened ruler, who
ushers in a reign of justice and peace in the world.8 In the Indian tradition
prior to Buddhism, the concept referred to a sage, benevolent, and just ruler,
a mythical vision of the perfect king, who is able to rule by righteousness
rather than by force. In Buddhism, not only is the ruler’s sagely acumen and
magnanimity rooted in Buddhist teaching; it is also possessed of a Buddhaʼs
wisdom and compassion.
While the evidence for Aśoka’s dispersion of stūpas to China was alleg-
edly destroyed in Qin Emperor Shihuangdi’s campaign to rid his empire of
rival teachings,9 Daoxuan 道宣 (596–667) listed over twenty of King Aśoka
stūpas in China in his Collection of Inspired Responses of the Three Treasures
in Shenzhou (i.e., China) (Ji Shenzhou Sanbao gantong lu 集神州三寶感通
錄), or simply Record of Inspired Responses (Gantong lu 感通錄).10 One of
the characteristics of stūpa relics is an ability to emit light, a symbolic affirm-
ation of the enlightened nature of the Buddha that still resides in his remains.
Through such emission, the stūpas are able to be rediscovered, even after
Introduction 5
becoming buried and obscured over a long period of time. The first stūpa
on Daoxuan’s list, the Kuaiji Mao County Stūpa 會稽鄮縣塔, a reference to
the Precious Stūpa of (the Buddha’s) Remains at the King Aśoka Monastery
on Mount Mao 鄮山阿育王寺舍利寶塔 (in Mingzhou, contemporary
Ningbo), was rediscovered in this way. Daoxuan recounts the tale of a man
named Liu Sahe 劉薩訶, active during the reign of Emperor Wu (r. 265–290)
of the Jin dynasty.11 When instructed to repent his past misdeeds in front of
Aśokan stūpas to avoid rebirth in hell, he eventually arrived at Kuaiji, where
he heard the sound of a bell beneath the ground that made a deep impression
on him. On the third day, the Precious Stūpa burst forth, radiating dazzling
rays of light.12
The Mount Mao Aśoka Stūpa became an important Buddhist monument
in the region, one that the Wuyue ruler Qian Chu 錢俶 (King Zhongyi 忠懿
王; r. 947–978), a main protagonist in our Tale of Two Stūpas, readily engaged
with. In emulation of Aśoka, Qian Chu set out to frame his own territory as a
Buddha-land (foguo 佛國) by creating and dispersing eighty-four thousand
miniature stūpas throughout the realm. The Leifeng Pagoda was erected to
house stūpas created by Qian Chu, to help realize this quest.
Through the custom of manufacturing the Buddha’s śarīra as beads,
crystals, precious stones, or other items, there was no danger posed by the
otherwise finite nature of his material remains.13 In cases where the physi-
cality of alleged bodily remains proved restrictive, Mahayana Buddhist tradi-
tion determined that Buddha’s relics could be constituted in ways other than
rūpa-kāya (seshen 色身) physical remains to include dharma-kāya (fashen
法身) doctrinal remains, as captured in his recorded teachings. Dharma-
kāya remains are even more infinite, limited only by the capacity to make
copies of the Buddha’s teachings, and were greatly enhanced by advances
in printing technology which allowed for quick and massive reproductions
of manuscripts. In this context Qian Chu printed an alleged eighty-four
thousand copies of an esoteric text, the Precious Chest Seal Dhāraṇī Sūtra,
containing a formula for recitation, to be deposited in stūpas and pagodas
throughout his realm. (A discussion of the Precious Chest Seal Dhāraṇī Sūtra,
is included in Chapter 4 and a translation in Appendix 2.)
The Yongming Stūpa also exhibits the adaptability and malleability
of the tradition of relic veneration in Buddhism. Just as the Buddha was
born into the world as a human being, Siddhartha Gautama, and achieved
Buddhahood as Śākyamuni; just as Sudhana (Shancai 善財), the pro-
tagonist in the Gaṇḍavyūha, “Entering the Dharma Realm” section (Ru
fajie pin 入法界品) of the Flower Adornment Sūtra (Huayan jing 華嚴經,
Avataṃsaka Sūtra), completed his heroic fifty-two-stage pilgrimage through
various lands with various teachers, ending in his attainment of the ulti-
mate truth; so did the Chinese Buddhist monk Yongming Yanshou repre-
sent the epic human struggle to achieve the pinnacle of realization. Indeed,
both the lives of Śākyamuni, as represented through jataka tales, and depic-
tion of Sudhana’s epic quest became regular features depicted in Hangzhou
Buddhism. Scenes from Śākyamuni’s former lives were used by Qian Chu,
for example, as subjects depicted on the four sides of the square-shaped
platforms of the Aśoka-style stūpas he constructed.14 Sudhana’s story was
also commonly represented in Hangzhou Buddhism, evident in both the re-
mains unearthed from the Leifeng Pagoda excavation site and the Feilaifeng
grottoes of Buddhist sculptures.15 The important difference between the
depictions of the likes of Śākyamuni and Sudhana, on the one hand, and
Yongming Yanshou, on the other, is that the former were examples from
India and depicted in Indian Buddhist scriptures, while Yanshou came to
represent a native-born Chinese Buddha who produced writings and was
known through a growing body of legends in China.
Yongming Yanshou became a vehicle for the “human being as Buddha”
motif, a kind of Buddhist apotheosis, that became popular in Hangzhou.
Through a model based in real life events, Yanshou became a subject of in-
tense image-making, to emerge as an emissary for rebirth in Amitābha’s Pure
Land, and eventually regarded as an emanation of Amitābha himself. In sum,
a revered Buddhist teacher and practitioner became a Pure Land Patriarch,
a bodhisattva or Buddhist saint, and ultimately the Buddha Amitābha him-
self. The lesson is clear: Buddha did not appear only in India––his manifes-
tation also became a reality in Hangzhou. Moreover, Yanshou’s case is not
unique in Hangzhou. The Hangzhou region was characterized by suggestive
identifications of its residents with Buddhas and commanding Buddhist fig-
ures. Yanshou as manifestation of Amitābha was preceded by the legend of
a local itinerant monk named Qici 契此 (late ninth to early tenth centuries)
from Fenghua 奉化 (present-day Ningbo), who allegedly became known
as a manifestation of Maitreya, as Budai (Sack-Cloth) Maitreya 布袋彌勒
(discussed in greater detail below).16 There is also the later example of Ji
Gong 濟公, or Chan Master Daoji 道濟禪師 (1130–1209), who was declared
an incarnate bodhisattva or one of the Eighteen Arhats famed in the region
as Mahākāśyapa, the Xianglong (Subduing the Dragon) Arhat 降龍羅漢.17
This tendency compelled Qing Zhang to assert, “By the late Southern Song
Introduction 7
period, people believed that many Buddhist deities had appeared in various
incarnations in China and that many Chinese monks who lived in the Song
or earlier periods had been incarnations of Buddhist deities.”18
The story of Yongming’s stūpa is as compelling as the legends associ-
ated with the man himself. After the development of the Yongming Stūpa
cult in the Song dynasty, Yanshou’s memory was forgotten and his remains
discarded, only to have them recovered and his stūpa resurrected in the late
Ming dynasty, when his identity as Amitābha became pronounced.19 Without
this remarkable resurgence, it is unlikely there would be any Yongming Stūpa
or veneration of Yanshou today.
Buddhist Sites and Translocations
In recent decades there has been a slow but steady evolution in Buddhist
studies from ideological foci centered on textual and doctrinal studies to
practical matters concerning what Buddhists actually did as opposed to
what they said they did. Included in the latter is a shift toward Buddhist
material culture, items retrieved through archaeological excavations, stele
inscriptions, information revealed through frontispieces and postfaces,
images produced in stone and other media, productions of objects and
utensils used in rituals and monastic life, mechanisms associated with the
printing and dissemination of texts, and so on. The sites around which this
production of material objects occurred, not to mention the intellectual ac-
tivities and practices conducted at them, have received less attention.
Jinhua Chen notes that Buddhist sites and sacred places are connected
with the Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and other deities, and with leading figures
noted for their roles in the development of the religion, and I agree that it
would be hard to exaggerate the special significance these have for a trans-
cultural religion such as Buddhism, which originated in India and spread
through the whole of East Asia via Central Asia.20 Hangzhou and its envi-
rons proved ripe territory for such translocations. As Chen further notes,
“The spread of Buddhism in Asia may be viewed from one perspective as
a protracted and complex process in which numerous sacred sites were
created and recreated in different cultural settings. The story of Buddhism
increasingly penetrating into all levels of society in Asia is mirrored by an-
other narrative in which some of the most sacred sites––both historical and
legendary––in India were reproduced in other parts of the world.”21 This
process of forming and reformulating a Buddhist sacred geography was

not simple, but one that entailed complex cultural adjustments, inventions,
and reinventions. Moreover, as important as this process was, its dynamics
have yet to be subjected to close analyses. Studies that have been undertaken
have focused their attention on China’s four sacred Buddhist mountains (or
marchmounts, sida mingshan 四大名山)––Wutai 五臺, Emei 峨眉, Putuo
普陀, and Jiuhua 九華––a nd others, like Mount Song 嵩山, home to the
famed Shaolin Monastery 少林寺.22 My study, looking at stūpas as sacred
sites, hopes to expand the narrative of Buddhist sacred geography, its cul-
tural adjustments, inventions, and reinventions, and the dynamics involved
in these processes.
The Transformation of the Hangzhou/Jiangnan Region

into an Indian Buddhist Homeland
Chinese Buddhism is usually surveyed in its entirety, in terms of a geo-

graphic unit labeled “China,” but is in fact a function of its regions.23 Even
the contours of Chinese Buddhist regional designations have yet to be de-
termined with certainty, especially as these may fluctuate over time and vary
in terms of their geographical extent.24 Researchers apply discipline-specific
criteria to mark their regions: geographical boundaries such as rivers and
river basins, mountain ranges and seas; climatological patterns; linguistic
usages and variations; spheres of cultural influences; and so on. A regional
approach to Chinese Buddhism beyond provincial boundaries might in-
clude the following: northern (Chang’an, Luoyang, and Beijing in the later
imperial period), southwest (Chengdu, Sichuan), northwest (Dunhuang and
Gansu), southeast (Jiangnan), and south (Fujian and Guangdong). Perhaps
the most stable of these unstable regions is Jiangnan 江南, literally “south of
the [Yangzi/Yangtse] river,” and normally indicative of a large area in south-
eastern China including the areas south of the middle and lower reaches of
the Yangzi River basin, the southern part of Jiangsu Province, the south-
eastern part of Anhui Province, the northern part of Jiangxi Province, and
the northern part of Zhejiang Province. A term in use from ancient times, it
was included among the nine provinces of China 九州 in the pre-Qin era and
has been a constantly evolving designation for, at times, a more expanded
area, typically veering farther to the south. For many centuries and at least
since Wuyue established its territory in the late ninth century, Hangzhou (or
Introduction 9
its former iterations as Qiantang 錢塘 and Lin’an 臨安) has served as the re-
gional center of Jiangnan.25
The homeland of Buddhism was originally inspired by the geographical
locations of important junctures that figured prominently in the life and ca-
reer of Siddhartha Gautama, who became known as Śākyamuni Buddha. The
junctures are conventionally listed as eight and include the following:
1. Descent from Tuṣita heaven 降兜率

2. Entry into motherʼs womb 託胎
3. Birth from motherʼs side 降生
4. Leaving home to engage in spiritual training 出家
5. Subduing demons 降魔
6. Attaining enlightenment 成道
7. Turning the Dharma-wheel 轉法輪
8. Entering final nirvāna 入滅
Buddhist pilgrims frequented sites associated with these junctures (e.g., the
Buddha’s birthplace at Lumbinī, the site of enlightenment at Bodh Gaya, the
site of his first sermon at Sarnath, the site of his death at Kushinagar), to form
a geographical area delimited by Śākyamuni’s life and career. The routes of
these pilgrims delineated the sacred homeland of the Buddha and the initial
idea of a Buddha-land, a land transformed by the presence of a Buddha.
According to Chinese Buddhist records, as mentioned earlier, Aśoka dis-
persed his stūpas throughout the world, including China, and these formed a
substratum of the Buddha’s sacred presence, residing in his relics, throughout
the land. Following the actual arrival of Buddhism in China during the Han
dynasty, evidence of Asoka’s dispersed stūpas in China began to be revealed.
The Kuaiji Mao ta in Ningbo became an important center for the Aśoka
cult in Wuyue. King Qian Chu emulated King Aśoka, vowing to create
eighty-four thousand stūpas throughout his land, and printed copies of
the dhāraṇī sutra, The Precious Chest Seal Dhāraṇī Sutra of the Whole Body
Relics Concealed in All Buddhas’ Minds (Yiqie rulai xin mimi quanshen
sheli baoqie yin tuoluoni jing 一切如来心秘密全身舍利宝篋印陀羅尼
經; Sarvatathāgatā dhiṣṭhāna hṛdayaguhya dhātukaraṇḍa mudra-nāma-
dhāraṇī-sūtra) to serve as Dharma-body śarīra to place inside the stūpas.26
According to the inscriptions found on unearthed pagodas, King Qian Chu
made two separate large-scale productions within a span of ten years. The
first one was eighty-four thousand bronze Aśoka Pagodas created during the
year yimao 乙卯 (the second year of the xiande era [955] of the Later Zhou
dynasty), the same year, ironically, Emperor Shizong mounted a major perse-
cution of Buddhism in the north (counted as one of four major persecutions
of Buddhism in Chinese history). The second major effort was when eighty-
four thousand iron Aśoka Pagodas were created in the year yichou 乙丑 (the
third year of the qiande era [965], during the reign of Emperor Taizu of the
Song dynasty).27
In sum, King Qian Chu evoked the Aśoka model to create a Buddha-land
in Wuyue. This was part of a growing association of the region with India
and the homeland of Buddhist culture. With this thriving association as a
base, Buddhists in the region began to confidently reimagine key aspects of
Buddhist culture that were adapted to its new homeland.28
The notion of the Buddha-land contained both geographical and idea-
tional aspects. It combined notions of the sacred with an actual scape, be it
a physical materialization on land or an imagined realm in the heavens. It
could, at times, integrate both, as when the Buddhas Maitreya and Amitābha
were believed to alight on earth, or when bodhisattvas like Avalokitêśvara
and Samantabhadra were believed to take up residence in a particular area.
Thus, the Buddha-land is tied to the idea of buddhakṣetra, a land or realm of
a Buddha in the process of transformation, or already transformed. In China,
the four sacred Buddhist mountains were designated as the abodes of fa-
mous bodhisattvas: Mañjuśri 文殊 on Wutai, Samantabhadra 普賢 on Emei,
Avalokitêśvara 觀音 on Putuo, and Kṣitigarbha 地藏 on Jiuhua. The legacy of
a Buddha-land had particular resonance in Wuyue.
Buddhist sites and other translocations from India played a vital role
in the reimagining of Hangzhou as the center of a Buddhist region, a new
Buddhist homeland that replicated and rivaled similar regions in India itself.
I have already touched upon one of the important elements in the transloca-
tion of Indian Buddhism to the greater Hangzhou region in my discussion
of the Aśoka stūpa 阿育王塔 located at the Aśoka Monastery 阿育王寺 in
Mingzhou 明州 (contemporary Ningbo). In sum, King Qian Chu evoked the
Aśoka model to create a Buddha-land in Wuyue. Through the dissemination
of miniature stūpas with the “relics” of Buddhist teaching, The Precious Chest
Seal Dhāraṇī Sutra, housed inside, the king was able to animate his kingdom
as a paradigmatic mesocosm and form a magical structural milieu to evoke
the presence of the Buddha in nirvāna.29 The kingdom becomes essentially
a kind of living stūpa, its territory marked by the resurrected remains of the
Buddha’s body.30 This was part of a growing association of the region with
Introduction 11
India and the homeland of Buddhist culture. With this thriving association
as a base, Buddhists in the region began to confidently equate the Buddhist
culture of the region with its Indian homeland.
Another aspect of the translocation is the relocation of landscapes asso-
ciated with sacred sites from India to Hangzhou. On the northern slope of
Feilaifeng 飛來峰 (The Peak That Came Flying [from India]), in niche 58
of the Yixiantian 一線天 wall,31 there is the Foguo 佛國 (Buddha-land) in-
scription that adequately summarizes the Wuyue propensity to define it-
self.32 Legends of the origins of Feilaifeng draw upon its direct connection to
India. The alleged “founder” was an Indian monk, known in China as Huili
慧理, who in 326 ce (during the Jin dynasty, 225–420 ce) visited Hangzhou
and became convinced that Feilaifeng was actually Mount Gṛdhrakūṭa
(Vulture’s Peak, Chn. Lingjiu feng 靈鷲峰). Mount Gṛdhrakūṭa is well-
known in Buddhist lore as the site of many of the Buddha’s most famous
sutras, including the Lotus Sūtra 法華經 and the “Flower Sermon” 世尊拈
花, where Śākyamuni held up a flower to the congregation in lieu of his usual
oral presentation and resulted in granting the “true Dharma-eye and mar-
velous mind of nirvāna” 正法眼藏涅槃妙心 to his disciple Mahākāśyapa.
The resemblance of Feilaifeng to Mount Gṛdhrakūṭa was affirmed by the
Indian monkeys who accompanied Huili, who recognized it from their
homeland and confirmed his suspicion. Although this legend persists and is
often repeated, there are no records linking Huili and Feilaifeng in Buddhist
historical texts prior to the Five Dynasties period.33 This suggests an attri-
bution conceived in the context of the Wuyue promotion of Buddhism. For
example, Qing Zhang points to the “Lingyin si beiji” 靈隱寺碑記 (Stele
Inscription of Lingyin Monastery) written around 986 by Luo Chuyue 羅
處約 (960–992) as an early record asserting that Huili identified the moun-
tain area in Hangzhou with Vulture Peak: “[This mountain is] a peak from
Vulture Peak. In what period [did it] come flying here?” (靈鷲之峰耳, 何代
飛来乎).34 From this period on, the name Feilaifeng was increasingly associ-
ated with the area.
This was but one of many of the associations made to India in Hangzhou.
The area also includes a series of monasteries in the hills surrounding
Feilaifeng, most prominently the Lingyin Monastery 靈隱寺, but also the
three Tianzhu 三天竺 monasteries, Shang (Upper) Tianzhu 上天竺 or Faxi
si 法喜寺 (Joy of the Dharma Monastery), Zhong (Middle) Tianzhu 中天
竺 or Fajing si 法靜寺 (Purity of the Dharma Monastery), and Xia (Lower)
Tianzhu or Fajing si 法鏡寺 (Mirror of the Dharma Monastery). As an old
name in Chinese for India, “Tianzhu” affirms the intimate association of the
area as a replica of (and substitute for) the Indian original. Even the name
for the central monastery, lingyin, usually translated literally as “the Soul’s
Retreat,” may be taken as an abbreviation for lingjiushan yinsi 靈鷲山隱寺,
“the Hidden Monastery of Mount Gṛdhrakūṭa (Vulture Peak),” that is, the
secret Indian homeland of the Buddha. Evidence for the association can be
found in a former name for Lower Tianzhu Monastery as Lingshan 靈山,
Mount Gṛdhrakūṭa (or Vulture Peak) Monastery.35 Another monastery in
the Feilaifeng area reflects this association even more explicitly. The Lingjiu
xingsheng si 靈鷲興聖寺 (Monastery of Flourishing Sages at Vulture Peak),
erected during the reign of King Qian Zuo 錢佐 of Wuyue (r. 941–947),
draws a direct connection to Mount Gridhrakuta/Vulture’s Peak.36 Antonio
Mezcua Lopéz observes that the theme of the Foguo or “Buddha-land” in
Hangzhou seems to unfold in three concentric movements: at a macro level,
it was associated with greater Hangzhou; on an intermediate level, with
the Lingyin and Tianzhu area; and at a micro level, restricted to Feilaifeng
Mountain itself.37 The need for redefinition of the space on a symbolic, re-
ligious, and political level was channeled through the image of the land as a
Foguo, extending throughout the whole city of Hangzhou, and arguably be-
yond, to the entire region.
In addition, there is the tradition of relocated arhat disciples of the Buddha
to the Hangzhou region. One of the distinctive features of Chan Buddhism
in the Hangzhou region was admiration of the exemplary practices of arhat
disciples of the Buddha Śākyamuni. On the surface, this admiration flies in
the face of Mahayana denigration of arhats as practitioners of a “lesser ve-
hicle,” indicative of their inferior wisdom and mistaking it as full attainment.
As human practitioners, however, Chan monks in their daily practice identi-
fied readily with the imagined trials and tribulations that arhats experienced.
Bodhisattvas, in comparison, were remote beings whose accomplishments
allowed them to wander freely throughout Buddhist worlds freed from
human toil, to perform miraculous interventions in response to human
needs. One can add depictions of the story of Sudhana (Shancai 善財), men-
tioned earlier as a bodhisattva practitioner whose example was popular
in the Hangzhou region. In addition, there was a tradition that four great
arhats––Mahākāśyapa, Kundopdhānīya, Pindola, and Rāhula––postponed
their nirvāna to stay in the world at the request of Śākyamuni, to protect the
law until the appearance of the future Buddha Maitreya.38 This made them
“arhats with bodhisattva characteristics” and positioned them as attractive
Introduction 13
models in the Chinese Chan context. The task of protecting the Dharma until
the arrival of Maitreya was assumed by all arhats as the cult developed fur-
ther to extend to sixteen, eighteen, and ultimately five hundred practitioners.
An area beyond the Stone Bridge (Shiqiao 石橋) on Mount Tiantai was
believed to be the actual residence of the Five Hundred Arhats during the
Song period, where they had miraculously decamped from India. According
to Wen Fong, by the early ninth century it was assumed that the five hundred
arhats lived there.39 The five-hundred-arhat tradition itself can be traced
back to India. Xuanzang 玄奘 (602–664), in the Datang xiyu ji 大唐西域記
(Record on the Western Countries of the Great Tang), described an Indian
tradition of five hundred arhats residing in the mountain Buddhavanagiri
near Rajagrha. Prior to Xuanzang, the compiler of the Gaoseng zhuan 高僧
傳 (Biographies of Eminent Monks), Huijiao 慧皎 (ca. 530), related how
the monk Tanyou 曇猷 (d. 390–396) visited Mount Tiantai and crossed
the Stone Bridge to meet holy monks (as shen seng 神僧, not explicitly
arhats). By the early ninth century, the identities of the monks took shape
as arhats, when Xu Lingfu 徐靈府 (active first half of ninth century) wrote
in the Tiantaishan ji 天臺山記 (Record of Mount Tiantai) about the arhats
above the rock bridge on Mount Tiantai. As a result, people of the region
came to believe that five hundred arhats lived on Mount Tiantai above the
Stone Bridge. In the Song gaoseng zhuan 宋高僧傳 (Biographies of Eminent
Monks Compiled in the Song) record of the Tiantai monk Pu’an 普安 (770–
843), Zanning 贊寧 mentions the existence of a cave on Mount Tiantai be-
yond the Stone Bridge where arhats secretly dwell. After Pu’an passed away,
his remains were interred in a stūpa on the mountain and a Five Hundred
Arhat Hall was erected. A Wuyue king, Qian Liu, frequently made offerings
to it, and a monastery was restored there in the early Song dynasty.40 By the
tenth century, the identity of the sacred monks as five hundred arhats was
well established.41 The Feilaifeng grottoes also provide evidence for the as-
cension of the arhat cult in the Hangzhou region. Because both arhats and
Chan patriarch-practitioners are essentially monks striving for attainment
based on their own human efforts, there are many commonalities between
them. This is reflected in depictions of them in artistic representations and
accounts for their popularity among Chan practitioners.42
There is also the tradition of incarnations of Buddhas and bodhisattvas
in Hangzhou. As reviewed earlier, these manifestations include the appear-
ance of Maitreya as Budai Mile in Fenghua. As mentioned, great arhat disci-
ples of the Buddha postponed their nirvāna to stay in the world at the request
of Śākyamuni, to protect the law until the appearance of the future Buddha
Maitreya. Maitreya also figured prominently in providing the ultimate revel-
atory vision to Sudhana in the Gaṇḍavyūha Sutra, when Maitreya opens the
door to his marvelous tower by snapping his fingers. Within the tower, Sudhana
experiences the realms of dharmadhatu in a succession of fantastic visions.43
The only niche carved during the Southern Song (niche 68) at Feilaifeng
is the one depicting the famous Budai (Cloth Sack) Maitreya 布袋彌勒
sculpture. It reveals Maitreya as an incarnation of a tenth-century figure
from the Fenghua 奉化 district of the Mingzhou (Ningbo) region from
the Wuyue Kingdom, an affable, plump, and eccentric Buddhist wanderer,
surrounded by eighteen arhats. Budai is the epitaph for the Chan monk Qici
契此, mentioned in the Zongjing lu 宗鏡錄, with biographical records in
the Song Gaoseng chuan 宋高僧傳 and Jingde Chuandeng lu 景德傳燈錄.44
Budai Maitreya also figured prominently in initiatives by leading Southern
Song Chan figures Dahui Zonggao 大慧宗杲 (1089–1163) and Hongzhi
Zhenghue 宏智正覺 (1091–1157), who sought to merge local legends with
the Buddhist tradition in the hopes of attracting people to Chan through
wider appeal to more popular characters.45 Bernard Faure points to Budai
as an example of “one strategy in Chan for domesticating the occult [by]
transforming thaumaturges into tricksters by playing down their occult
powers and stressing their this-worldly aspect.”46 My interest here, how-
ever, is drawn to the retinue of eighteen arhats. Depicting the arrival of the
future Buddha accompanied by Chan arhat practitioners suggests that the
transformation of Feilaifeng and by extension the greater Hangzhou region
(jiangnan 江南) into the Buddha-land of Maitreya has been realized––the
arhats assigned to await the coming of the future Buddha and transmit the
dharma to Maitreya have assembled around him––and the mission has been
accomplished.
Hangzhou as Buddhist Homeland: The Experience

of Myōan Eisai
As Hangzhou established itself as a new homeland of an imagined India in

China, it renewed itself as a center for Buddhism in East Asia. As a hub for
the wider dissemination of Buddhism, Hangzhou was greatly aided by a vi-
brant maritime trade throughout the region, most notable at the seaport at
Introduction 15
Mingzhou 明州 (Ningbo), through which frequent contacts were maintained

with Japan and Korea.47 Japanese monks, particularly of the Tendai 天台 and,
later, Zen 禪 schools, frequently participated in trade missions that brought
them to the Hangzhou region to renew or refresh their understanding of
Buddhism. The experience of Myōan Eisai (or Yōsai) 明庵榮西 (1141–1215)
is both representative of this tendency and instructive for illustrating trans-
formations in Buddhism in the Hangzhou region.48
Like many Tendai monks before him, including the Tendai founder Saichō
最澄 (767–822) and his successors Ennin 圓仁 (794–864) and Enchin 円
珍 (814–891),49 and those closer in time to Eisai, Chōnen 奝然 (938–1016),
Genshin 源信 (942–1017), Jōjin 成尋 (1011–1081), Kaikaku 戒覚 (d.u.; mis-
sion to China in 1082), and Chōgen 重源 (1121–1206; mission to China in
1167), Eisai embarked on a journey to China to seek answers to the dilemma
of Buddhist decline (mappō 末法) in Japan, a preoccupation shared by many
of his age. His desire to partake in the continental culture of Buddhism
that had nurtured and sustained Japanese Buddhists since the inception of
Buddhism in Japan was part of a well-established pattern of Sino-Japanese
Buddhist cultural exchange. In spite of the remembrances of his motives some
thirty years later in a treatise arguing for Zen’s merits against entrenched po-
litical and religious forces in the Japanese context, the Kōzen gokokuron 興
禪護國論,50 there is no suggestion that Zen figured in any of his aspirations
on this first trip. Contrary to his claims, Eisai was actively engaged in propa-
gating esoteric Buddhist teachings in northern Kyushu, in keeping with his
Tendai taimitsu 台密 heritage, after his return, and expressed no interest in
establishing a Zen school.51
Even on his second journey to China in 1187, Eisai’s expressed purpose
was focused not on Zen but on continuing to India to make a pilgrimage to
sacred Buddhist sites, a plan reminiscent of the earlier Indo-centric model of
Chinese pilgrims Faxian 法顯, Yijing 義淨, and Xuanzang 玄奘:
My concerns mounted unabated for twenty years, until the time when
I longed to make a pilgrimage to the eight sacred sites of the Buddha in
India.52 In the third month, the Spring of the third year of bunji (1187),
I bade farewell to my homeland, and carrying lineage records of the various
Buddhist schools and works containing gazetteers [with geographical in-
formation] on the western regions,53 arrived in Song China. At first, I went
to Lin’an (the Southern Song capital Hangzhou) and visited the Military
Commissioner,54 officially requesting permission to travel to India. The of-

ficial petition stated:
Pulling my half-finished visage across suspended walkways spanning
treacherous mountains, I am fully dedicated to becoming a complete
person in the flat “golden land” [of the Buddha].55
Alluding to phraseology used to describe Xuanzhao 玄照 in the Great

Tang Biographies of Eminent Monks in Search of the Dharma in the Regions
of the West (Da tang xiyu qiufa gaoseng zhuan 大唐西域求法高僧傳),56
Eisai highlights the contrast between the pilgrim’s treacherous journey
and the flat (and untreacherous), unobstructed “golden land” where the
Buddha’s enlightenment was attained, a perfect expression for someone
suffering from a borderland complex. From this account by Eisai’s own
hand, his expressed intention was not to acquire Chan/Zen transmission
but to follow in the footsteps of Chinese pilgrims to the land of the histor-
ical Buddha. The implicit meaning behind this intention is to acquire the
authentic teaching of Buddhism, which Eisai assumes is still viable there.
He does not realize that Buddhism is but a fading memory in India at that
point and, even if successful, would have yielded few if any of his intended
results.
In spite of his efforts and intentions, Eisai’s plan was thwarted. The
circumstances that prevailed in Song China at this time inhibited the feasi-
bility of travel between China and India. The Jurchen Jin 金 invaded China
in 1127, forming a dynasty that lasted until 1234, forcing the Chinese gov-
ernment to cede control of the north and establish the Southern Song capital
at Hangzhou. The Xixia 西夏 (Tanguts, 1038–1227), moreover, had con-
trol over the northwest frontier region, making the overland route to India
impassable. When pilgrimages were made by Buddhist monks previously,
China controlled these regions and was able to help ensure passage through
them. As a result, the Chinese commissioner did not grant him a travel
permit for India, but only a permit to remain in China.57
With his ambitions for pilgrimage to the “western regions,” the golden
land of the Buddha and the arena of “true” Buddhism, blocked, Eisai was
forced to retreat to the land of the “new” Buddhism that had developed in
the Hangzhou region simultaneous to the decline of Buddhism in India.
When he encountered the obstruction to his plan for passage to India, Eisai
turned his intent to Chinese Chan practice, returning to the monastery
on Mount Tiantai he had visited on his first trip. One source in particular
Introduction 17
lays bare Eisai’s motives in this regard, attributing them to environmental

circumstances (i.e., unfavorable winds) rather than being predetermined:
The ship master announced the return [to Japan]. They set off into the
ocean and on the third day a headwind suddenly arose, pushing them back
to Ruian prefecture in Wenzhou. Eisai said to himself, “Because the wind
and waves have thwarted me, I haven’t finished my investigations [here]
after all.” He then took leave of the chief merchant and went directly to
Wannian Monastery on Tiantai to visit Xu’an.58
By his own account, Eisai acknowledges his attention on the monastic

precepts of the four divisions of the monastic assembly (sifen jie 四分戒)
and the bodhisattva precepts (pusa jie 菩薩戒), in addition to his partici-
pation in chan practice (can chan 參禪). This marked an association of Zen
(chan) with strict precept practice that would come to define Eisai’s eventual
Zen teaching. All in all, this was a momentous turn of events, and one with
lasting consequences for the history of Buddhism in East Asia. Eisai turned
his defeat into success by acknowledging and accepting how the greater
Hangzhou region (Jiangnan 江南) had been transformed into a “stand-in”
for India, a virtual replica of the Buddha’s homeland that both played on the
past Buddhist tradition and effectively anticipated its future. In the centuries
before Eisai’s arrival, the Hangzhou region had successfully transformed it-
self through a combination of borderland complex and translocation into an
authentic Buddhist homeland, a new center for East Asian Buddhism.
The rationale behind Eisai’s transformation from Tendai pilgrim to Zen
advocate has often been explained in doctrinal terms associated with the
advent of “mind to mind transmission” 以心傳心 and Chan as a “separate
transmission outside the teachings” 教外別傳. This was indeed an important
pretext for legitimizing Chan as an (the?) authentic transmission of Buddhist
teaching. As Jinhua Chen has indicated, lineage is one of the strategies mar-
ginalized Buddhist communities employed in overcoming their borderland
complex.59 It was extremely important in validating an allegedly authentic
transmission in the Chan/Zen tradition and was instrumental in Eisai’s
claims over rival factions (i.e., the Daruma School of Dainichi Nōnin 大日能
忍) to establish his credibility. But it was one factor among many, and not the
major factor in Eisai’s transformation. While the mind-to-mind transmis-
sion motif is heralded by Eisai,60 as is his assertion of Zen as a separate trans-
mission outside,61 it was the spatial relocation and physical transformation
of the Hangzhou/Jiangnan region into an “Indian” Buddhist homeland that

made Eisai’s acceptance of this motif and assertion possible. Without this re-
location and transformation, Eisai’s discovery of authentic Buddhism in the
Hangzhou/Jiangnan region would not have been possible.
Two theoretical models, “borderland complex” and “translocation,” ex-
plain how the Hangzhou region (Jiangnan) became a new Buddhist homeland
in East Asia. “Borderland complex” and “center versus periphery” models
have been used in the study of Asian history.62 Jinhua Chen has written how a
“borderland complex” obsessed Chinese, Japanese, and Korean monks when
they related to India, and how India, the birthplace of the Buddha, was rec-
ognized as the center of the “dharma world,” and all the places located out-
side the Indian subcontinent were taken to be on the periphery.63 As Chen
notes, the perception of inhabiting a peripheral borderland removed from
the center posed a gap that was not merely geographical but also cultural, and
caused an acute sense of marginality, instilling in Buddhist followers outside
India a potential anxiety bordering on despair. At the same time, the sense of
distance inspired admiration toward India as the center and cultural home-
land of Buddhism, an admiration that fostered a desire to follow the patterns
established in Indian Buddhism, a confidence to emulate these, and eventu-
ally presumptions that the periphery is not different from the center, and is
even the center itself. The patterns and presumptions fostered by the border-
land complex led to the formation of unique characteristics of Buddhism in
China that spread throughout East Asia. These include how sacred sites were
constructed and reimagined in East Asia from Indian Buddhist inspirations
and how sacred lineages were envisaged and developed as an effective way to
combat this borderland complex.
If “borderland complex” supplies the answer as to why the unique Chinese
and East Asian imaginaire, the creative impulse born of a combination of
anxiety and admiration, developed, “translocation” suggests an answer to
the question of how it was actualized and put into effect. Translocation, the
movement of something from one place to another, is a more recent con-
cept in the social sciences, and is currently used with wide application from
a number of scholars concerned with the dynamics of mobility, migration,
and sociospatial interconnectedness.64 Recently, Reinhold Glei and Nikolas
Jaspert applied the concept of translocation to the study of religions, noting
that the subject of religious translocation is set within a wider semantic
framework heavily indebted to the spatial turn within the humanities, where
the term has been applied mostly to phenomena related to migration.65 In
Introduction 19
cultural studies, the spatial dimension has been applied beyond notions of
physical space to incorporate “a wide array of spaces––imagined, ascribed,
mental, textual, corporeal, literary spaces, and many more.”66 As Glei and
Jaspert explain, translocality also draws attention to hubs of religious con-
tact, nodes of interaction integral to the transmission and transformation
processes in the spread of religious phenomena. The concept of nodes and
hubs is useful in examining the concrete dynamics of religious transfer, in
determining not only where such processes occurred but also the way the
processes were brought about and who and what (the individuals, groups,
texts, or ideas) were instrumental in bringing them about. Observations
across religious traditions reveal how beliefs dis-or translocate a cultic ep-
icenter when moving beyond geographic borders. Processes of religious
diffusion are closely tied to the translocation of sacred spaces, enabling the
creation of new sites or transference of sites into new regions. Religious dif-
fusion is not necessarily predicated on the effacement of former (or orig-
inal) centers but may in fact be multi-or polylocal in character. Multi-or
polylocality occurs when space, whether physical or mental, is transgressed
and an original site and its associations made to serve the assertions of new
locations. In this way translocality may give way to multilocality. When the
foci of religious devotion associated with a concrete physical place are dis-
tanced from believers, new places replicating the original physical place are
conceived and constructed to serve as replicas of the original. Owing to diffu-
sion and expansion, a religious tradition was capable of developing multiple
centers, creating differing and competing imageries.67 As outlined earlier,
the Hangzhou region has a rich Buddhist cultural heritage from which to ex-
amine how this process was imagined and enacted in concrete terms.
Chapter Outlines
In the examples focused on in this volume, I look at how the border-

land complex and translocation functioned in the case of two prominent
Hangzhou landmarks: Leifeng Pagoda and Yongming Stūpa. Relics are cen-
tral to both. Leifeng Pagoda involves the imagined transplantation to China
of Aśoka stūpas housing the Buddha’s relics, a reimagined repurposing of
the Aśoka model by the Wuyue king Qian Chu, and the dispersion of relics
throughout his realm. The Yongming Stūpa involves the ascent of a local
monk, Yongming Yanshou, to bodhisattva-like status, eventually regarded as
an incarnation of Amitābha Buddha himself, and the cult associated with

the worship of his relics aimed at rebirth in the Pure Land. The vicissitudes
endured by these two monuments provide a glimpse into the history of
Buddhism in Hangzhou and the rebirth of Hangzhou Buddhism in contem-
porary China.
Chapter 2, “Hangzhou Buddhism in Historical Perspective,” introduces
the innovative aspects of Buddhism developed through the textual produc-
tion emanating from masters associated with the Wuyue Kingdom, namely,
the Zongjing lu 宗鏡錄 (Record of the Source-Mirror) by Yongming Yanshou
永明延壽 (904–975), the Seng shilüe 大宋僧史略 (Topical Compendium of
the Buddhist Clergy) by Zanning 贊寧 (919–1001), and the Jingde Chuandeng
lu 景德傳燈錄 (Record of the Transmission of the Lamp Compiled in the
Jingde Era) by Daoyuan 道原 (d.u.). I propose that the tripartite-pillar struc-
ture of the Buddhist Eightfold Path—śila (moral training), samādhi (mental
training), and prajñā (training in wisdom)—as a method by which to address
the issue of Buddhist transition, and that the three texts produced by masters
from Wuyue, each suggests supplements to this structure that influenced sub-
sequent developments in East Asian Buddhism.
Chapter 3, “The Origins and Development of the Yongming Stūpa,”
reviews the life and legend of the Wuyue monk Yongming Yanshou, the
circumstances around the creation of the Yongming Stūpa and its resurrec-
tion in the Ming dynasty, and the contemporary revival of the Yongming
Stūpa cult, which focuses on the worship of Yongming Yanshou as an incar-
nation of Amitābha Buddha.
Chapter 4, “The Origins and Development of Leifeng Pagoda,” describes
the origins of the Leifeng Pagoda at the bequest of King Qian Chu, the in-
sertion of Aśoka relics and The Precious Chest Seal Dhārani Sūtra, the con-
nection between Leifeng Pagoda and the legend of the white snake, and the
destruction and resurrection of Leifeng Pagoda in the modern period.
Chapter 5, “A Tale of Two Stūpas: The Parameters of Buddhist Revival in
China,” looks at the stories of creation, destruction, and revival of Yongming
Stūpa and Leifeng Pagoda within the larger context of Chinese Buddhism,
and also examines them specifically in terms of the revival of Buddhism
in contemporary China. I conclude with some reflections on the future of
China’s Buddhist past, given the dynamics we have observed and their per-
sistence down to the present day.
Appendix 1 includes translations of relevant documents contained
in the Chijian Jingci Monastery Gazetteer pertaining to the Ming period
Introduction 21
resurrection of the Yongming Stūpa: Short Inscription Contained at the Stūpa

of Wisdom-Enlightened, Note on the Reconstruction of the Stūpa Pavilion of
Chan Master Yongming [Yan]shou, An Appraisal of the Sudubo (Stūpa) of
Chan Master Shouning, and Poem and Preface on the Transfer of the Stūpa.
Appendix 2 contains translations of The Precious Chest Seal Dhārani Sūtra
and documents included in the Chijian Jingci Monastery Gazetteer.
The ambiguity of the Buddhist presence in China is on full display here.
Perennially, since its inception on Chinese soil, Buddhism has frequently
been subjected to criticisms, sometimes extremely harsh criticisms, for its
Indian origins, as un-Chinese, as anathema to Chinese native values, and so
on. As noted by Robert Sharf, “Chinese Buddhism was rendered . . . the off-
spring of a . . . marriage whose progeny was never granted full citizenship
in China.”68 Attempts to exterminate the Buddhist presence in China are
not restricted to the socialist pogroms that reached a zenith fifty years ago
aimed at purifying modern China of its feudal past. The Buddhist presence
in China has long evoked mixed emotions. To some, Buddhism is integral to
Chinese identity, and any definition of Chinese culture would seem lacking
without its contributions. To others, Buddhism remains tainted by its for-
eign origins and alien value system, and true Chinese culture is possible only
when Buddhist teachings are omitted. I hope, in some small way, that my
reclaiming the history of these two monuments, the Yongming Stūpa and
Leifeng Pagoda, will help to shed light on this enduring ambiguity.
2
Hangzhou Buddhism
in Historical Perspective
Hence, it comes to pass that when they return home and say they
have been to Kinsay (Hangzhou), the City of Heaven, their only de-
sire is to get back thither as soon as possible. . . . [T]‌he city is beyond
dispute the finest and noblest in the world.
—Il Milione (The Travels of Marco Polo)
Above are the Halls of Heaven, below are Suzhou and Hangzhou.
上有天堂，下有苏杭。
—Chinese proverb
Introduction
The Tang-Song transition of the tenth century is regarded as one of three ep-
ochal transformations in Chinese history along with the formation of empire
in the Qin/Han dynasties in the third century bce and the modern trans-
formation following the demise of the Qing dynasty in the early twentieth
century. The patterns implemented in the wake of the Tang-Song transfor-
mation defined the Chinese empire for a millennium, and everyone agrees
that it was a monumental transition, regardless of the meaning ascribed to
it. According to the Naitō hypothesis, the Tang-Song transition heralded the
beginning of an indigenous East Asian modernity independent of and prior
to contact with Europe.1 While Naitō’s claims are not unproblematic,2 few
would contest the impact of the epic transition from Tang to Song. Following
Naitō, Nicholas Tackett regards the transformation from Tang to Song as the
locus of monumental changes in China’s society and economy. These include
a considerable expansion of population, a relocation of much of the Chinese
population from North China to South China, and a process of urbanization.
A Tale of Two St ūpas. Albert Welter, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2022.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197606636.003.0002
Hangzhou Buddhism in Historical Perspective 23
This, in turn, spurred a “medieval economic revolution” involving the mon-

etization of the economy, an expansion of market networks, and the emer-
gence of long-distance trade in luxury goods. These changes were facilitated
by advances in agriculture and technological innovations, such as the rise of
printing. Social changes, too, accompanied these transformations, namely,
the demise of the aristocracy and the rise of an urban elite. Politically, the new
era was characterized by a new and broader base of constituents for admis-
sion to the administrative bureaucracy, enhanced by imperially sponsored
exams that awarded success on the basis of merit. It was also characterized by
an autocratic monarchy which, in conjunction with the new administrative
elite, displaced the old aristocracy as purveyors of culture.3
The Tang-Song transformation also had a significant impact on Buddhism
in China (and subsequently throughout East Asia), but the way it affected
Buddhism has not been adequately addressed. Older narratives considered the
Tang dynasty of the apogee of Chinese Buddhist achievement and the Song
dynasty Buddhism as the beginning of eras of decline.4 Gratefully, the assump-
tion of Buddhist decline in China following the Tang dynasty has been laid to
rest. More recent narratives focusing on Chan Buddhism underscore the im-
portant role it played in the Song dynasty, suggesting an underlying continuity
with Tang traditions.5 Others assume consistency between Song Chan and
Tang Chan narratives, without adequately taking into account the Song dy-
nasty revisionist nature of these narratives.6
Sandwiched between the Tang and Song dynasties, the Five Dynasties pe-
riod is largely forgotten. Following the suggestion of Valerie Hansen,7 the
most innovative periods in Chinese history are often those removed from
the strictures of central government control, chaotic periods when inno-
vation and experimentation are prized over the status quo that prevails
in more stable dynastic periods. While this analogy can be overstated,
it does serve to frame important innovations that were conceived in the
times “in between” major dynasties in China. I am particularly drawn to
innovative ideas conceived during the Five Dynasties that were formative
for the “new Buddhism” of the Song dynasty. When I invoke a model like
“new Buddhism,” I am suggesting not displacement but, rather, enhance-
ment in the sense of fulfillment or completion. It would be wrong to suggest
that the “old” Buddhism of the Tang was jettisoned and something “new”
was installed in its place. Better to consider that Tang Buddhist traditions
were repurposed, for the most part, and served as a base for the new,
added components. In this sense, it is better to regard Song Buddhism as
“Buddhism-plus,” a veneer of traditions that were absorbed, and not neces-

sarily a negation of what had come before.
The contemporary observer Zanning also affirmed the character of the
“new” Buddhism when he asserted its tripartite division: (1) exoteric teachings
顯教 (the canon of scriptures including sūtras, vinaya, and treatises); (2) eso-
teric teachings 密教 (techniques of yoga,8 abhiṣeka investiture ceremonies, five-
part esoteric ceremonies, the three mystic modes of activity, and maṇḍalas);
and (3) mind teachings 心教 (Chan teaching of directly pointing to the human
mind, seeing nature, and becoming buddha).9 For Zanning, the new innova-
tion was the mind teaching developed in the Chan school predicated on mind-
to-mind 以心傳心 transmission of the enlightenment experience. This is an
assumption that has also led large swaths of modern scholarship and has priv-
ileged the Chan tradition, sometimes to the exclusion of the larger Buddhist
context. In particular, it was driven by Japanese Buddhist scholarship, whose
investigations often had a strong sectarian context that looked almost exclu-
sively toward Chan antecedents for their own traditions.
In this chapter, I expand beyond innovative aspects of Chan, though these
are also included, to address some key aspects of a reimagined Buddhism
that proved formative for the new Buddhism of the Song dynasty. My sugges-
tion of a “reimagined Dharma” takes its inspiration from three works asso-
ciated with monks from the Buddhist kingdom of Wuyue (897–979) during
the Five Dynasties period: the Zongjing lu 宗鏡錄 (Record of the Source-
Mirror) by Yongming Yanshou 永明延壽 (904–975), the Da Song Seng shilüe
大宋僧史略 (Topical Compendium of the Buddhist Clergy) by Zanning 贊
寧 (919–1001), and the Jingde Chuandeng lu 景德傳燈錄 (Record of the
Transmission of the Lamp Compiled in the Jingde Era) by Daoyuan 道原
(d.u.). As I will argue below, these may be viewed as critical supplements
that enhance the three pillars of classical Buddhism––morality (śila 戒),
meditation (samādhi 定), and wisdom (prajñā 慧)––impetuses inherent in
Buddhism’s origins and paradigmatic models for all of Buddhism. However
conscious the authors were of remaking these pillars, their reformulations
reflected Chinese Buddhism’s new frames for success in a post-Tang envi-
ronment. I am not suggesting these are the only frames for Song Buddhist
enhancement. Another, more conventional frame would include qinggui 清
規 (pure rules, indicating the supplementary rules instituted at Chan monas-
teries), denglu 燈錄 (lamp records, of which the Jingde Chuandeng lu is usu-
ally considered the prototype for Chan-style transmission), and yulu 語錄
(dialogue records of enlightened Chan masters). Yet when we look at regional
adaptations of this model, the texts compiled by masters from Wuyue point
to another influential model. The creation and reception of these works
would not have been possible without government support, both in Wuyue
and at the early Song dynasty court, and especially the Wuyue aspiration to
reframe its territory as a Buddhist homeland.10
The Wuyue Kingdom and the Creation of

an East Asian Buddhism
As Tang authority deteriorated, the southern principality of Wuyue was able

to carve out a quasi-independent, politically stable, and economically vi-
brant regime centered in the regional capital of Qiantang (which later be-
came the Southern Song capital of Hangzhou). Like other southern-based
regimes of the late Tang and Five Dynasties periods (e.g., Southern Tang,
Min, and Southern Han), Wuyue was built on a plan for revising the glories
of the Tang dynasty, predicated on a revival of Tang Buddhist culture, based
on a Buddhist vision of society and culture.11
The founder of an independent Wuyue, Qian Liu 錢鏐 (King Wusu 武
肅王, r. 893–932), was granted an imperial posthumous title, Taizu 太祖
(Great Ancestor), revealing the pretensions of the Wuyue regime. While
Qian Liu was early on attracted to Daoism under the influence of Luo Yin
羅隱,12 Buddhism became the hallmark of his regime. Qian Liu supported
Buddhism with a campaign to construct monasteries throughout the re-
gion, including the Taiping Cloister 太平院 (for housing the famous Tiantai
prelate Zhiyi’s 智顗 remains), the Huiri Monastery 慧日寺, and the Jiuming
Monastery 九明寺 on Mount Tiantai 天台山.13 Monks from various re-
gions sought refuge under the protection of the Buddhist monasteries that
Qian Liu supported, including representatives of Northern and Southern
factions of Chan.
Mount Tiantai, the cradle of the Tiantai School initiated by Zhiyi (538–
597), was a key spiritual center of the Wuyue region. After the death of Zhiyi
and his disciple Guanding 灌頂 (561–632), Tiantai was absorbed into the
Buddhism of the capital, Chang’an, and lost its independent status and vi-
tality. It was revived for a time in the eighth century by the sixth patriarch of
the school, Zhanran 湛然 (711–782), but fell into decline after his death.14
With the support of Wuyue rulers, the school was revived. Zanning (919–
1001) claimed Haorui 皓端 (889–961), honored by the Wuyue ruler Qian
Chu 錢俶 (King Zhongyi 忠懿王) with a purple robe and named “Great
Virtuous Exalter of Dharma” (dade songfa 大德崇法), was the successor of
the tenth Tiantai patriarch, Xuanzhu 玄燭.15
The campaign to revive Buddhism in Wuyue culminated in the personal
connections and political fortunes of Tiantai Deshao 天台德紹 (891–972)
and Qian Chu (King Zhongyi, r. 948–978).16 Nearly forty years his junior,
Qian Chu naturally relied on Deshao for advice, practicing Buddhism under
him in a manner more akin to a master-disciple relationship than the natural
pattern pertaining between a ruler and his spiritual advisor. Deshao’s stature
in the region was such that he was praised as the reembodiment of Zhiyi.17
His influence over Qian Chu resulted in favored treatment for Deshao’s
students in Wuyue, many of whom studied alongside Qian Chu in Deshao’s
congregation.18 Most prominent among them were Zanning, who succeeded
Deshao in the role of Wuyue’s political advisor, and Yongming Yanshou, who
assumed the role of spiritual leader in Wuyue after Deshao. Yanshou’s career
culminated with the role of abbot at the Yongming Monastery 永明寺 (con-
temporary Jingci si 淨慈寺), a newly established institution in the Wuyue
capital that symbolized the central role of Buddhism in the region.
Through the promotion of Buddhism, Wuyue rulers envisioned a re-
vival of the old glory of the Tang, when Buddhism served as a central feature
in the definition of civilization and culture. Of all the regions in the South
during this period, Wuyue was economically and politically the strongest.
Among the southern states, Wuyue also provided the strongest support for
Buddhism, and Buddhism served as the strongest cornerstone of Wuyue cul-
tural policy. It is noteworthy, however, that in spite of changes in society and
culture that demanded new responses from Buddhism, Wuyue support was
driven by conservative forces seeking through Buddhism the recovery of a
former glory. While Wuyue Buddhism was embodied largely in support for
Chan masters and institutions, it sought to weld these to precedents founded
in the doctrinal traditions of Buddhist scholasticism. The style of Chan pro-
moted in Wuyue fostered such arrangements. As a result, although the Wuyue
Buddhist revival was carried out largely under the Chan banner, Chan in
Wuyue had its own distinct character that identified Chan with former Tang
Buddhist traditions, and this identification with the larger Buddhist tradition
became a defining feature of Wuyue Chan. The major protagonist of Wuyue
Chan was Yanshou, whose Chan syncretism redefined the contributions of
the doctrinal schools of Buddhism and their textual traditions in terms of
Chan principles. Yanshou’s notion of zong 宗 is articulated extensively in his
major work on Chan scholasticism, the Zongjing lu 宗鏡錄 (Records of the

Source-Mirror).19
Yanshou’s writings reflect prevailing assumptions regarding orthodox
Buddhism inherited in Wuyue. Although Yanshou identifies himself in his
writings as a Chan master, his brand of Chan should not be confused with
Linji faction teachings that assumed dominance after the Song dynasty con-
solidation.20 Yanshou is quite critical of the tenets associated with Hangzhou
nd Linji Chan teaching, whether it be the rejection of Buddhist scriptures
as a meaningful guide or the dismissal of Buddhist piety, seated meditation,
and other conventional Buddhist practices as impediments to direct appre-
hension and sudden awakening (wu 悟). Yanshou’s Chan, true to the orien-
tation toward Buddhism prevalent in Wuyue, reflects broad assumptions in
Chinese Mahāyāna teaching and incorporates the full range of practices that
this teaching offers. While Yanshou agrees that these teachings are prepara-
tory, in some sense, and do not reflect the complete awakening experience
that Chan affords, these teachings are also part and parcel of true bodhisattva
practice, and no true Buddhist would reject them. The myriad good deeds
(wanshan 萬善) that Yanshou advocates in his Wanshan tonggui ji 萬善同
歸集 (Collected Writings on the Common End of Myriad Good Deeds) are
thus a reflection of the pan-Mahāyāna universalism promoted by Wuyue
policy.21
The architects of Wuyue policy were the ruler Qian Chu (King Zhongyi)
and his spiritual and political advisor, the Buddhist monk Tiantai Deshao
天台德紹. Qian Chu was a self-proclaimed cakravartin. Although the re-
vival of Mount Tiantai as a spiritual center in Wuyue was a strong priority at
Deshao’s urging, as a ruler Qian Chu identified with the stūpa reliquary on
Mount Ayuwang 阿育王山 (King Aśoka). According to Buddhist traditions
in China, when the famed pro-Buddhist Indian monarch dictated that stūpas
containing relics of Śākyamuni be erected throughout his kingdom, some–
–like the one on Mount Ayuwang in Wuyue––were erected in China.22
The presumption that Aśoka’s stūpas were erected in China symbolically
represents the inclusion of China in the larger Asian Buddhist world.
The Aśokan model in Wuyue was more than symbolic. In imitation of
Aśoka’s pro-Buddhist program, Qian Chu mounted a massive construction
campaign aimed at physically imprinting Buddhism on the Wuyue land-
scape. The number and scale of construction activities carried out by Wuyue
monarchs has been well documented.23 Indicative of this activity was the re-
construction of Mount Tiantai––including its numerous monasteries and
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
+ Booklist 17:152 Ja ’21
“Cheerfully condescending and commonplace. Mr Burroughs

deserves something better.” D. M.
− + Nation 112:89 Ja 19 ’21 40w

+ N Y Evening Post p10 D 31 ’20 220w
“It is true to the life, sympathetic and intimate. No admirer of John

Burroughs can do without this pleasant book.”
+ N Y Times p2 D 5 ’20 1450w
“It is a good book for boys and girls as well as for older people up
to the nineties.”
+ Outlook 126:600 D 1 ’20 50w

+ R of Rs 62:669 D ’20 120w
+ Wis Lib Bul 16:236 D ’20 60w
BARRY, RICHARD HAYES. Fruit of the desert.

*$1.50 Doubleday
20–7295
“A race of sun-worshippers, the Sunnites, rescue the hero, left
starving on the desert of Arizona by bandits. He finds his new friends
to be survivors of an ancient civilization. Inevitably, as in all stories
of this type, he falls in love with their high priestess and escapes with
her to the less romantic but more comfortable life of every-day
America.”—Outlook
“Having elected to write a romance, and a romance of a very

romantic sort, Mr Barry is entirely justified in using romantic
methods and in paying just as little heed as pleases him to
probabilities. He writes with the skill of a craftsman, he keeps the
interest well sustained.”
+ N Y Times p24 Ag 1 ’20 720w

Outlook 125:223 Je 2 ’20 80w
BARTHOLOMEW, WALLACE EDGAR, and

[2]
HURLBUT, FLOYD. Business man’s English,
spoken and written. il *$1.48 Macmillan 808
20–15735
“Bartholomew and Hurlbut have prepared a book which ‘intends

to interpret English as used by the careful business man of today.’
Chapter I of this book indicates the need of a study of business
English. Succeeding chapters take up such subjects as the business
vocabulary, ‘Common errors,’ clearness and emphasis in written
expression. Chapters VIII, IX, and X deal with oral English. Five
chapters are devoted to the study of various forms of letters. The
subject of advertising is given thorough consideration.”—School R
N Y Evening Post p9 O 30 ’20 90w
Reviewed by Brander Matthews
+ N Y Times p10 D 5 ’20 980w
“The book is well organized for use as a textbook. Persons giving

English courses in secondary schools will find it helpful.”
+ School R 28:797 D ’20 320w

The Times [London] Lit Sup p801 D 2
’20 40w
BARTLETT, WILLIAM HENRY. Handbook of

American government; rev and enl ed. by H:
Campbell Black. *$1.25 Crowell 353
20–11824
The last previous edition of this book appeared in 1912. The

present revision is designed to cover changes since that time,
including three amendments to the constitution, changes in the
judicial system, and changes brought about by the war. The editor
has also “taken advantage of the opportunity to explain or discuss at
greater length various important topics mentioned in the original
text, and to introduce comments or explanations of some clauses of
the constitution, or of the practical working of government under it,
which had not previously been included.” (Editor’s note)
+ Survey 45:26 O 2 ’20 60w
BARTLEY, MRS NALBRO ISADORAH.

Gorgeous girl. il *$1.75 (2c) Doubleday
20–6713
Stephen O’Valley became rich quick. He strained every nerve to

become so because he wanted to marry the “gorgeous girl,” Beatrice
Constantine, the spoiled daughter of wealth. When the engagement
gaieties, the wedding and honeymoon were over, and Steve proposed
to Beatrice that they quiet down and “find themselves” the
disillusionment began. A perpetual round of social excitement, a
reckless spending of money was Beatrice’s entire world and Steve’s
comparisons between her and Mary Faithful, his right hand in
business, became more searching. In time Mary assumes the rôle of
critic holding the mirror up to Steve, to show not only his own life
but Mary’s heart. When the failure of Steve’s business sends the
heartless Beatrice to Reno another kind of “gorgeous girl” takes her
place.
“Nalbro Bartley has mastered the style of American magazine

fiction. She has the light touch, the gift for quick, clever
characterization and a modicum of American slang. It is quite
noticeable that the women of the story are much more real creations
than the men.”
+ − Boston Transcript p11 Ap 3 ’20 500w
+ Ind 104:247 N 13 ’20 20w
“While Nalbro Bartley’s new story of ‘The gorgeous girl’ cannot be

called particularly convincing, it is less glaringly improbable than
some of her other tales. The book has some neat phrasing, Mary’s
home life is nicely sketched, and there are a few clever touches of
characterization.”
+ − N Y Times 25:199 Ap 18 ’20 480w
Reviewed by E. C. Webb
Pub W 97:995 Mr 20 ’20 300w
BARTLEY, MRS NALBRO ISADORAH. Gray

angels. *$1.90 (1½c) Small
20–17174
The first notice the world took of Thurley Precore was when she
“sang for her supper” and then continued to sing herself into people’s
hearts generally. The rich ghost lady heard the voice in her living
tomb and came out to take Thurley to New York and give her a
musical education. She became a prima donna, lived in an intimate
circle of first class artists, experienced their disappointments, their
boredom and the restlessness of fame. She tried to become reckless
and flirted with the forbidden, when her singing teacher, also a man
of genius, whom she secretly loved, set her right by confiding to her
his vision of America’s supreme mission in art. Winning the violet
crown he called it. Later the war with its war madness showed to
Thurley that her own particular mission lay in helping to restore a
hysterical people to sanity and to become one of the gray angels to
the broken ones of the war.
“The book is entertaining, the characters are well drawn. Fewer

characters would have been better. Thurley’s interesting career, with
its pleasing denouement, might have been told in considerably less
than 420 pages.”
+ − N Y Times p10 O 17 ’20 350w
BARTON, BRUCE. It’s a good old world. *$1.50

Century 814
20–14616
The book is a collection of contributions to various magazines.
They all look upon the cheery side of life, pick out the amenities from
the commonplaces, and abound in good advice and cheery
encouragement for the passengers on this “Good old world” whose
“quiet, patient fashion in which he goes around about the same old
task, day after day and year after year” the author admires. Some of
the titles are: I expect to be entirely consistent—after ninety; A great
little word is “why”; The second mile; It’s a moving picture world,
and the film changes every few minutes; The fine rare habit of
learning to do without; That fine old fake about the good old days;
Everybody has something.

+ Ind 104:249 N 13 ’20 30w
“Brief and pithy and filled with common sense philosophy.”
+ Wis Lib Bul 16:234 D ’20 30w
BARTON, GEORGE. Celebrated spies and

famous mysteries of the great war. il *$2 Page 940.3
19–17029
“George Barton has gathered together some of the strange

happenings of the war. It is no connected tale of espionage, but
rather a series of pen pictures relating to only a few of those involved
in the conflict, and those few among the best known. The opening
chapter deals with the disappearance of the Hampshire, with
Kitchener and his staff; the final one, with the murder of Ferdinand
at Sarajevo. In between are such dissimilar persons as Edith Cavell,
Capt. Fryatt, Bolo Pasha, Roger Casement, Ram Chanda and Werner
Horn.”—Springf’d Republican
“Every chapter reads like an Oppenheim novel in little, and there is

matter enough in the book to furnish material for all writers who are
seeking plots for stories of mystery.”
+ Boston Transcript p11 D 13 ’19 200w
“This book contains more promise than performance. Whatever

interest the stories themselves might hold is entirely spoiled by the
stagey dressing.”
− Cath World 111:406 Je ’20 170w
“An especially interesting chapter is ‘Eugene Van Doren and the

secret press of Belgium.’ If Mr Barton has told nothing new he has at
least gathered together the fragments of interesting and varied
careers reflecting differing aspects of the war.”
+ Springf’d Republican p8 D 16 ’19 160w

BARTON, WILLIAM ELEAZAR. Paternity of
Abraham Lincoln; was he the son of Thomas
Lincoln? an essay on the chastity of Nancy Hanks.
*$4 Doran
20–19246
The author says that this book may be considered a footnote to his
earlier book, “The soul of Abraham Lincoln” and as a suppressed
preface to a “Life of Abraham Lincoln” which he plans to write. He
states that in collecting data for the first book he came upon a
considerable body of material bearing on Lincoln’s paternity and
discovered that a number of intelligent collectors of Lincoln books
and students of history were convinced that Abraham Lincoln was
not the son of Thomas Lincoln. “Moreover, the author found himself
at length compelled to ask of himself the question, What if these
reports are true? And he pursued his investigations with an open
mind.... The author has endeavored to trace every rumor and report
relating to the birth of Abraham Lincoln, to assemble all the available
evidence in favor of it and against it, to judge each one of these
reports upon its own merits, and to render what, he believes, is a
judgment from which there can be no successful appeal.” The
judgment is a refutation of the supposed evidence and the author
believes that he has covered the ground so thoroughly that the
matter need not be referred to again.
+ Boston Transcript p7 N 20 ’20 840w
“A convincing study which leaves not a square inch of ground for

the scandal to stand on. Mr Barton’s researches have been exhaustive
and—barring a few minor slips—accurate.” C. V. D.
+ Nation 111:734 D 22 ’20 820w
“It is undisputedly and indisputably a good work to which Dr

Barton has set his hand.”
+ N Y Times p16 O 31 ’20 1750w

R of Rs 53:222 F ’21 70w
“A scholarly monograph.”
+ Springf’d Republican p6 N 15 ’20 480w
BARTON, WILLIAM ELEAZAR. Soul of

Abraham Lincoln. *$4 (3½c) Doran
20–3862
“The fact that there are so many books on the religion of Abraham
Lincoln is a chief reason why there should be one more.” (Preface)
The author explains his volume by stating the considerations which
differentiate it from earlier works. He has provided an adequate
historical background for the study of Lincoln’s religious life in
successive periods and has been aided in this effort by the fact that
he spent seven years in the same environment in which Lincoln lived
during two important epochs of his career. He has assembled a larger
body of essential evidence than any previous writer has compiled,
and subjected it to a critical analysis. He has opened several entirely
new avenues of investigation and he has set forth his conviction
concerning the faith of Abraham Lincoln aside from his theological
opinions. Accordingly the book falls into three parts: 1, A study of
religious environment; 2, An analysis of the evidence; 3, The religion
of Lincoln. The appendices contain extracts from addresses and
books of other writers and there is a bibliography and an index.
“For libraries attempting a complete Lincoln collection, though it

is rather lacking in charm for general reading.”
+ − Booklist 17:28 O ’20
“This book is so important in its field that it must be regarded as

necessary to any library, public or private, fittingly equipped for the
critical consideration of Lincoln’s religious history. His book is so
well done that it is likely long to remain the standard work on the
subject.” L. E. Robinson
+ Bookm 51:547 Jl ’20 3200w
“The conclusion of the whole matter is that despite its entertaining

and its authoritative biographical qualities, such a book as ‘The soul
of Abraham Lincoln’ is utterly futile. It leaves us exactly at the point
of its beginning. In its last page we have no clearer idea of Lincoln’s
religious belief than in its first. Despite the mass of material he
assembles, Dr Barton proves nothing.” E. F. E.
− + Boston Transcript p4 Ap 7 ’20 1500w
“His viewpoint, the skilful analysis of conflicting evidence, and the

ability which the author shows in reaching a logical conclusion,
seems to us to make this book one with which all students of the lives
of Lincoln must hereafter reckon.”
+ N Y Call p10 Mr 28 ’20 340w
“His volume will probably be the final authority on the much-

debated topic of Mr Lincoln’s religious faith.”
+ Outlook 124:656 Ap 14 ’20 2000w

Spec 124:835 Je 19 ’20 70w
“Like many others who would like to have Mr Lincoln pictured not
exactly as he really was, but as they are eager to think him, Mr
Barton labors hard to show what he believes to have been the
president’s religious ideas. The result is a new literary portrait of Mr
Lincoln, interesting and agreeable in details of the president’s family
life, but leaving one unconvinced regarding his religious
convictions.”
+ − Springf’d Republican p6 Mr 15 ’20

600w
“Mr Barton has done his work with good feeling and well. In one
thing we dissent from him seriously. He quite naturally ascribes
Lincoln’s refusal to follow his wife all the way into the Presbyterian
fold, or some other, to the weak side of his intellect and character. In
all this there is something astray.”
+ − The Times [London] Lit Sup p480 Jl 29

’20 1250w
BARUCH, BERNARD MANNES. Making of the
reparation and economic sections of the treaty. *$3
Harper 940.314
20–18667
Having been intimately concerned with the creation of the

reparation and economic sections of the treaty, the writer, in his
introduction to the book, gives an apologetic review of the then
existing conditions. The treaty was made, he says, in the still
smouldering furnace of human passion. In the reparation clauses the
conference was not writing a mere contract of dollars and cents; it
was dealing with blood-raw passions still pulsing through peoples’
veins. He concedes that the treaty is severe but also insists that it is a
flexible instrument, qualified to help effectuate a just and proper
peace, if that desire and purpose be really present. Contents: How
the reparation clauses were formed; Drawing the economic clauses;
Reparation clauses; Economic clauses; Appendix; Index.
“He writes with more caution and less indignation than Keynes but
his conclusion is essentially the same.”
“It is straight history, instead of being, like Keynes’s book, a blend

of history, literary satire and propaganda.”
+ Ind 103:442 D 25 ’20 120w
“Though Mr Baruch is still somewhat under the influence of the

pall of Paris, he lifts something of the veil of secrecy, and when he
does he speaks with authority, and not as the journalists. It is an
invaluable contribution.” L. S. G.
+ − Nation 111:506 N 3 ’20 1200w
Reviewed by Alvin Johnson
New Repub 25:21 D 1 ’20 1550w
“Mr Baruch seeks to explain, rather than to defend—which is the

more enlightening method. His simplicity, candor, and restraint let
the reader in to an apprehension of the true facts as he sees them.
Where is it, then, that Mr Baruch’s conception of the relations of men
and nations fails us and dismays us? Because he counts too low the
significance of words. Mr Baruch comforts himself that the parts of
the treaty which he hates not less than I do are empty because they
are impossible, and harmless because they can never happen. But
they have wounded, nevertheless, the public faith of Europe.” J. M.
Keynes
+ − N Y Evening Post p3 D 4 ’20 3050w
“The author has given a valuable account of the matter; clear,

dispassionate, uninvolved. His contentions gain in force through the
strictness with which he keeps within the field that he has marked
out for himself.”
+ No Am 212:859 D ’20 600w
“Should prove a valuable book of reference.”

+ Outlook 127:32 Ja 5 ’21 340w
“Mr Baruch’s chapters are brief and direct, while also persuasive to
the point of carrying conviction. The atmosphere in which the work
was done is well reproduced. This volume will be a necessary part of
every public and private library that includes the essential books
relating to the making of peace.”
+ R of Rs 62:668 D ’20 320w
“His new book is short and concise, but it is in some respects the
most illuminating comment upon the treaty that we have seen.”
+ Spec 125:778 D 11 ’20 1300w
BASCOM, LELIA. Elementary lessons in English

idiom. *$2 Appleton 425
20–15172
A work prepared in the Extension division of the University of

Wisconsin as a textbook for students in correspondence-study. It is
“designed to aid two types of students,—those who are not native
Americans but who have had a season of study in night school or
elsewhere so that they read and write English a little; and those
native Americans who are handicapped by a lack of knowledge of
good English usage.” The teaching thruout the book is by examples
and exercises for practice. Rules are reserved for a summing up at
the end.
BASDEN, GEORGE THOMAS. Among the Ibos
of Nigeria. il *$5 Lippincott 916.6
20–20653
“The country of the Ibos is a district in British West Africa on the

lower Niger immediately above the delta, and mainly on the eastern
bank of the river. The people—some of them—are cannibals and
addicted to the offering of human sacrifices with every circumstance
of cruelty; they eat snakes, except the python which is sacred; their
occupations are primitive, farming, fishing, and hunting—all three it
will be noticed connected with the necessity for procuring the prime
necessity, food. Their customs will be found detailed in this book.”—
The Times [London] Lit Sup
“There are annoying misprints both in English and Ibo; the map,
especially in the southern portion, must be termed misleading, it
does not even contain all the names mentioned in the text; but Mr
Basden has brought together much interesting material, some of it
novel, though in many instances insufficiently localized to be of use
to the scientific student. The errors pointed out above need not alarm
the general reader, who will find the life of the people set forth in an
interesting manner.” N. W. T.
+ − Ath p580 O 29 ’20 580w
“It is by a missionary of wide experience, rare open-mindedness,

and a real gift of observation. He makes no pretension to literary
excellence, but has made a book that is entertaining as well as
valuable ethnologically.”
+ Outlook 126:470 N 10 ’20 60w

“If we did not begin by crediting Mr Basden with sincerity, we
should be convinced of it in a few pages.”
+ The Times [London] Lit Sup p631 S 30

’20 720w
BASS, JOHN FOSTER. Peace tangle. *$4.50

Macmillan 940.314
20–19521
“Mr Bass traces recent diplomatic history from the secret treaties
entered into by various nations through the Paris peace conference
and the subsequent period. He devotes special chapters to conditions
in Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia,
Poland, Russia, the Balkans, and Turkey. Particular interest attaches
to the comment on the League of nations.”—Outlook
“Not so much a study of the treaty itself as Scott or of particular

sections of it as Baruch but more an evaluation in terms of actual
conditions and hoped for results. Less well organized than Keynes
but more detached in spirit (opinions are presented coldly, without
any attempt to persuade).”
“His book falls short of some of the other accounts, notably that of
Keynes, in organization of material, in charm of style and subtlety of
argument. In compensation it offers superior evidence of candor,
freedom from preconception and party bias and respect for the
independence of the reader’s judgment.” Alvin Johnson
+ − New Repub 24:330 N 24 ’20 1700w
“We know of no better volume to commend either to the man in

the street or to the serious student. The matter reveals a keen
observation, a rich experience, and a ripe maturity of judgment.”
+ Outlook 126:470 N 10 ’20 330w
“It is the best single book that has been written showing how the
peace treaty has actually worked in its application to political and
economic conditions.”
+ R of Rs 62:668 D ’20 110w

The Times [London] Lit Sup p843 D 9
’20 100w
BASSETT, JOHN SPENCER. Our war with

Germany; a history. il *$4 (3c) Knopf 940.373
19–19694
For descriptive note see Annual for 1919.
“Taken all together the account of Professor Bassett is the clearest

and best that has yet attempted in one volume the story of our part in
the world war. New sources will modify parts of the work, but the
main outlines will stand much as this historian has dispassionately
presented them. The chief complaint that some readers will make
with justice is that the book is placid rather than penetrating or
analytical.”
+ − Am Hist R 25:737 Jl ’20 650w
“Professor Bassett has written modestly and intelligently in a field

in which it would be easy to go far astray, and has attained more than
the ‘reasonable accuracy’ that his preface hopes for. No better book is
as yet available for the student interested in our participation in the
world war, and no other is so detached and historical-minded as this.
The least successful portion of the book is that which covers the
obscure yet significant leadership of the United States in the
development of the ‘single front,’ military and economic.” F: L.
Paxson
+ − Am Pol Sci R 14:351 My ’20 420w

+ Booklist 16:198 Mr ’20
“Carefully studied and judicially written, this book is sure to be one

of the useful authorities. In a broad survey of the field, the only
notable lack is a consideration of the economic effects of the war and
of its financing.” Preserved Smith
+ − Nation 110:302 Mr 6 ’20 360w
BASSETT, SARA WARE. Paul and the printing

press. il *$1.50 (2½c) Little
20–8885
Paul Cameron, president of his class in Burmingham high school,

conceives the idea of a school paper. With boyish daring he
approaches the leading editor of the town with a business
proposition and to the great man’s surprise persuades him into
printing the paper. The venture is a success and Paul learns much of
modern printing methods as well as something of the history of early
manuscript books and of printing. The book is the first volume in the
Invention series.
“Miss Bassett has made the story readable and enjoyable. One is
not too conscious of the didactic intention while on the other hand
her information stands out clearly, and she never allows it to be
smothered by the story interest.”
+ Boston Transcript p6 Je 30 ’20 150w
BASSETT, SARA WARE. Wall between. il

*$1.90 Little
20–15702
“A feud of four generations between two New England families is

the motif of Sara Ware Bassett’s new romance, ‘The wall between.’
Since the days of Great-Grandfather Webster and Great-Grandfather
Howe, the two families have quarreled over who shall keep in repair
the stone wall dividing their farms. Ellen Webster, a narrow-minded,
vitriolic spinster of seventy-five, and Martin Howe, forty, are the
respective heads of the families of this generation. Matters change
when Ellen brings her young niece Lucy from the West into the old

A Tale of Two Stūpas: Diverging Paths in the Revival of Buddhism in China Albert Welter full chapter instant download

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

A Tale of Two Stūpas: Diverging Paths in the Revival of Buddhism in China Albert Welter full chapter instant download

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

A Tale of Two St■pas: Diverging Paths

in the Revival of Buddhism in China

The Politics and Governance of Basic Education: A Tale

A History of China in the 20th Century 1st Edition Lü

The Many Paths of Change in International Law Nico

The Dominion of Sin: Book two of The Origin's Daughter

The Dharma in DNA: Insights at the Intersection of

A History of China in the 20th Century Lü Peng

The Trickster's Tale: Is That a Lute in Your Pocket?:

The Rise of the Middle Class in Contemporary China

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers

the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education

by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University

Press in the UK and certain other countries.

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.

© Oxford University Press 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the

prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted

by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction

rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the

You must not circulate this work in any other form

and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022912824

Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America

exceptionally fortunate to receive the support and hospitality of Lingyin

When the World-​ Honored One proceeded toward the stūpa,

A Tale of Two Stūpas: Diverging Paths in the Revival of Buddhism in Hangzhou

Buddhist Relic Veneration

The endurance of Yongming Stūpa and Leifeng Pagoda is a testimony to a

Buddhist Sites and Translocations

process of forming and reformulating a Buddhist sacred geography was

The Transformation of the Hangzhou/​Jiangnan Region

Chinese Buddhism is usually surveyed in its entirety, in terms of a geo-

1. Descent from Tuṣita heaven 降兜率

Hangzhou as Buddhist Homeland: The Experience

As Hangzhou established itself as a new homeland of an imagined India in

Mingzhou 明州 (Ningbo), through which frequent contacts were maintained

Commissioner,54 officially requesting permission to travel to India. The of-

Alluding to phraseology used to describe Xuanzhao 玄照 in the Great

lays bare Eisai’s motives in this regard, attributing them to environmental

By his own account, Eisai acknowledges his attention on the monastic

of the Hangzhou/​Jiangnan region into an “Indian” Buddhist homeland that

In the examples focused on in this volume, I look at how the border-

an incarnation of Amitābha Buddha himself, and the cult associated with

resurrection of the Yongming Stūpa: Short Inscription Contained at the Stūpa

This, in turn, spurred a “medieval economic revolution” involving the mon-

“Buddhism-​plus,” a veneer of traditions that were absorbed, and not neces-

The Wuyue Kingdom and the Creation of

As Tang authority deteriorated, the southern principality of Wuyue was able

major work on Chan scholasticism, the Zongjing lu 宗鏡錄 (Records of the

“Cheerfully condescending and commonplace. Mr Burroughs

− + Nation 112:89 Ja 19 ’21 40w

“It is true to the life, sympathetic and intimate. No admirer of John

+ N Y Times p2 D 5 ’20 1450w

+ Outlook 126:600 D 1 ’20 50w

BARRY, RICHARD HAYES. Fruit of the desert.

“Having elected to write a romance, and a romance of a very

+ N Y Times p24 Ag 1 ’20 720w

BARTHOLOMEW, WALLACE EDGAR, and

“Bartholomew and Hurlbut have prepared a book which ‘intends

Reviewed by Brander Matthews

+ N Y Times p10 D 5 ’20 980w

When the World- Honored One proceeded toward the stūpa,

The Transformation of the Hangzhou/Jiangnan Region

of the Hangzhou/Jiangnan region into an “Indian” Buddhist homeland that

“Buddhism-plus,” a veneer of traditions that were absorbed, and not neces-